


we'll work our way back to each other | dofty

by lockedinmybody



Category: Holby City
Genre: Canon Related, Cute, Fluff, Gay, Happy Ending, Kissing, M/M, Making Out, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 16:46:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12988242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lockedinmybody/pseuds/lockedinmybody
Summary: Dom and Lofty reunite when AAU has to come to Keller for a meeting. Canon divergent and v v fluffy. <3





	we'll work our way back to each other | dofty

“So,” Essie slides her desk chair closer to Dom’s, “how excited are you for this afternoon?” Dom raises one eyebrow, unimpressed. Things had been tense on the ward, the past week. Turns out balancing an ever shrinking budget and a lack of staff whilst still trying to give every patient the attention they needed wasn’t easy.  
Essie stays silent, searching Dom’s face. After a beat she shakes her head. “We have company this afternoon. AAU is coming to visit, some sort of get together about how we need to maximize every single resource we have at the moment.” Dom feels his face go slack. ‘AAU’ immediately makes him go ‘Lofty’. Essie grabs a few files and squeezes his shoulder. “It wouldn’t kill you to catch up with him you know. Ask him how he’s been.” She stands up, the chair rolling backward. “Find out if he’s been missing you as well.” She smiles teasingly as she passes him by, walking up the ward with quick short strides. Dom follows her with his gaze, eyes unfocused.   
With Lofty at AAU, it had been noticeable what he contributed not only to the ward, but also to Dom’s life. The small moments of pointless chatter with Lofty had always broken up the day, snapped Dom out of what could often be a consuming job. Despite what he had told Lofty in the past, Dom knew they were mates. They had acted like mates, when Lofty was still around. Dom missed the feeling of bumping into Lofty without actually searching for him, both men exchanging smiles and a few words before moving on. Somehow, Lofty was always there with those twinkly eyes and a wide grin stretched across his face. Dom was utterly convinced there wasn’t a bad bone in Lofty’s body, and it had been such a long time since he felt like he could rely on a gut feeling about someone.  
Dom startles as a large hand lands on his shoulder. “What kind of life questions are you pondering?” Sasha takes the seat Essie left empty, a friendly smile turned towards Dom.  
Dom gives him a small smile. “Nothing, I just…” Sasha’s smile widens. Dom clasps his hands together on the desk in front of him, eyes on his fingers. “Lofty.” He whispers.

 

***

 

The afternoon rolls around quicker than Dom anticipated, the pressure of the merger more welcome than normal, serving as a distraction. They have all been gathered in one of the conference rooms, nurses and doctors standing around as the tables and chairs have been shoved to the side. Sasha stands in the front of the room, whispering to Mr. Hanssen, the sound of their conversation being drowned out by the rest of the talking. The door is wide open, and after a moment Morven’s head pokes through, Donna and Lofty following suit.  
It feels as though there wasn’t anything that could have prepared Dom for seeing that familiar mop of brown curls again. He’s laughing at something Donna says to him, and it’s the most beautiful thing Dom has seen in weeks. Being away from Lofty had felt numb and empty, and seeing him again makes everything in Dom light up. He flexes his fingers, the tips grazing his thighs, feeling how much he wants to reach out and just _touch_. He knows he’s blatantly staring, but he can’t physically bring himself to focus on something else. Lofty’s eyes find him, and something in Dom’s face must show how happy he is to see him again because there is nothing left of the discomfort and hurt that Dom had seen when they’d shared a look in Alby’s, a few weeks back. Lofty moves towards Dom, seemingly without thinking about it, and bumps his shoulder against Dom’s. “Hey.” They must look like a right pair of idiots, just smiling at each other. “Hey yourself.” Dom grins back. He waves to Donna and Morven who both stand next to Lofty.  
A throat is cleared at the front of the room, and the crowd falls silent. Both Hanssen and Sasha introduce themselves for good measure, and begin speaking about the time the hospital finds itself in, how important it is to remain careful and precise in time of crises, how they can’t afford to waste neither manpower nor beds.

Dom can feel Lofty looking at him every few seconds from the corner of his eye. “You okay?” Lofty whispers into his ear. Dom turns his head to the side, nods with a small smile. They hold each other’s gaze for a moment, eyes trailing everywhere. Lofty’s eyes are as warm and big and _inviting_ as Dom remembers. He looks at the stray curls flopped over his forehead, and imagines running his hand through them, tucking them back. He looks at his cheeks, and jawline, and imagines his fingers stroking them, warm hand holding the side of Lofty’s face. His eyes drop down to Lofty’s lips, which he can still feel on his own every now and then. He snaps up to Lofty’s eyes, who are looking at him with a soft and fond gaze.  
“Drink later?” Lofty whispers. Dom finds himself nodding before he even really processed the question or thought about its consequences.

***

As soon as the meeting finishes, Dom feels Lofty lightly grasp his elbow. “You know you don’t have to…” he trails off, eyes looking anywhere but at Dom’s face. Dom smiles. “Backtracking already are we?” He jokes. There had been so many moments in the past few weeks where Dom had found himself wanting to have Lofty around. Wanting to be able to just have a chat, something to serve as a distraction from everything else. Lofty did that to him. Lofty had the ability to pull Dom in and make him forget about everything else, lighten up all the bad stuff. Now that Dom had a chance to actually spend some time with him, he wasn’t going to pass up on it.  
Lofty’s face looks timid and uncertain and it takes every ounce of willpower Dom has not to blurt out how much he misses him, how much he needs him. But he knows it’s too soon, and if he wants to give this a fair shot it needs to be slow. “We can definitely have a drink at Alby’s.” Dom assures him, squeezing Lofty’s shoulder. “I just need to grab some stuff from my locker.” Lofty still looks a bit unsure of himself, standing in the room as the other nurses and doctor have left. “You can come with me if you want.” Dom offers with a smile. That seems to take away the discomfort, and they make their way towards the locker room.

Dom opens his locker, takes a discarded water bottle and shoves in his bag. He checks a few more times if he has enough clean clothes with him and decides it’s good enough. Despite being focused on what he’s doing, he can feel Lofty hovering.  
“Dom.”  
“Hmm?” Dom’s closes his locker and lifts his head at the mention of his name, immediately faced with the fact that Lofty was in fact _much closer_ than he had initially thought. Lofty seems hyper focused on Dom’s face, and Dom drops his bag on the ground next to him, wanting to find out what Lofty’s thinking.  
It is almost as if Lofty can’t help himself. He lets his eyes trail all over Dom’s face, taking in every feature he had missed so much. Realigning himself with what he feared to become unfamiliar.  
Lofty takes a small step forward, Dom now with his back against the lockers. “Lofty.” Dom whispers, a hint of warning in his voice. The last time they did something similar to this, it hadn’t evolved into something more, and Dom does not want a repeat of that.

“Can I just…” Lofty seems to debating himself whilst asking the question. He snaps his eyes up to Dom’s, who nods breathily.  
Finally, Lofty leans in closer, Dom’s eyes closing on their own accord. He can’t see what Lofty’s doing, but he can _feel it_. He feels the brush of eyelashes against his cheekbone. He feels the soft kiss pressed against the side of his face. He feels Lofty’s lips trailing down, along his jawline.  
Feeling Lofty _so much closer_ than he has been in weeks is overwhelming, and Dom reaches out to hold Lofty, hands on his sides as the grounding gesture they were both used to. Lofty sucks on the skin of Dom’s neck and Dom exhales in a shuddering breath. “ _Lofty_ …” He sighs contently, feeling Lofty’s mouth curve into a smile against his throat.

Dom feels a soft warmness against the corner of his mouth, and his eyes fly open. Lofty looks slightly dishevelled himself, the effect of what they’re doing showing on his face but he also looks intent, eyes focused on Dom’s face and a small smile playing around his lips. Like a child at Christmas that finally got the present they had been asking for all year. Dom watches as Lofty’s mouth stretches into a wide grin, all teeth and sparkly eyes. “Would it be okay…”, Lofty whispers, a soft kiss pressed to the apple of Dom’s cheek, “for me to kiss you?”  
Dom looks at him, eyes flickering from Lofty’s mouth to between both of his eyes. “Yes.” He breathes. Lofty angles his head and leans forward, banging his knee against the lockers in the process. The loud noise startles them both, Dom snapping out of his haze and Lofty grabbing at his knee, hissing in pain. “Oh my god, are you okay?” Says Dom, face creased in concern as Lofty is still hunched over. “Yeah, yeah I’m fine.” Lofty grumbles back.  
When Lofty looks back up, Dom is laughing quietly, hand placed on his stomach and eyes almost scrunched closed. “It’s not funny!”  
“Yes it is!” Dom laughs. “I was almost wondering when you’d gotten so smooth.” Lofty looks bashful and Dom places his hand on the side of Lofty’s face, their eyes meeting. “I’m glad you’re still you.”  
The both of them smile, and Lofty closes the space between them, slotting their lips together.

Kissing Lofty now feels similar to how it felt at Zosia’s wedding. All heat and warmth, and pure adoration. But there’s no alcohol in Dom’s veins. The buzz and tingles are all Lofty. Dom pulls him closer, one arm around Lofty’s waist and the other hand tangled in Lofty’s dark curls. He feels Lofty’s curls slide through his hand at the back of Lofty’s head, and Lofty’s breath stutters in Dom’s mouth. Dom takes the opportunity to glide his mouth across Lofty’s jawline and down over his neck. “ _Oh_ , I love it when you touch my hair.” Lofty says, voice low and gritty. Dom grins against his adam’s apple, works his way back up to Lofty’s mouth. Lofty kisses with a fierceness and a desire that makes Dom feel giddy inside.  
Lofty slowly grazes his teeth over Dom’s lip, letting Dom’s mouth fall open at the sensation and sliding his tongue in and _Oh_. Tasting Lofty makes things so much more intense that Dom starts to feel a little dizzy and a kind of drunk he’s not used to. That, combined with the fact that he doesn’t want to get carried away in a locker room at _work_ , makes him pull away slowly.  
Lofty’s eyes are glazed over when he looks at him, a sense of pride registering in Dom’s mind that _he did that_. “What’s wrong?” Lofty asks, the worry in his face evident. Dom feels a pang of guilt knowing that that’s partly because it wouldn’t have been the first time Dom distanced himself from Lofty.  
“Nothing.” Dom says honestly, running a hand down Lofty’s arm. “But as much as I love kissing you, I think what we need right now is a drink. And maybe a chat.”  
Lofty looks more relieved at that than Dom could have hoped for.

***

“Here ya go.” A glass of wine is placed in front of Dom, Lofty holding one for himself as he takes the seat next to Dom, the two of them sitting at a 45 degree angle.  
Dom thanks him and takes a sip, letting the red liquid coat the inside of his mouth before taking it down. Lofty’s running his finger over the rim of his glass, and Dom wants to do anything he can to take the nervousness away.  
“Lofty, I know…” Dom trails off, not quite sure where to start with this conversation. Knowing he could not give Lofty the full reassurance he wanted to give him was making Dom want to run. So he starts with the thing he _is_ sure about. “I like you.” Dom blurts out, enjoying the way Lofty’s face immediately lights up in a blinding smile.  
“I know how I feel about you,” Dom sighs, a soft smile on his lips. “That’s not the issue.”  
Lofty’s eyebrows crease. “Then what is?”  
“Relationships scare me.” Dom admits. The candle in the centre of the table flickers a shadow across Lofty’s face and somehow softens his features even more than usual. “I have problems with trusting people. And we both know why that is.” Dom decides to not even drop his name. They both know who he is talking about, and Dom finally feels good about someone again and he does not want anything to taint that. “When we slept together…” Dom trails off. He feels a warmth spreading in his own face but Lofty just looks at him with expectant eyes. The straightforward way Lofty had told Dom what that night had meant to him had settled in Dom’s chest and stayed there for a while. Dom rarely felt important to people, and that weight had unfolded something inside of him.

“It meant a lot to me too. But I can’t go straight back to that place.” Lofty’s eyes are now trained on the wine glass in front of him and Dom fights the urge to grab his face with both hands and force him to look him in the eyes. He knows he might not be making any sense to Lofty but if they are going to do this, Dom has to do this first.  
“As in, we need to take things slow. And I don’t mean ‘saying we’ll take things slow but actually we’ll be an item within two weeks’, I mean actual slow.” Lofty looks up at Dom’s face, studies his eyes.  
He wants to do right by Dom, he really does. But he also likes him a lot.  
“And I already know there will be times where I have to remind myself that we need to go slow because when I see you or when I am around you, I don’t really want slow.” Dom says, looking Lofty in the eyes. He uncurls Lofty’s fingers from the wine glass and threads his own through his, lowering their joint hands on the table. “I just want you.” Lofty smiles at that. “I want that too.”

“We could start by just… going on a date?” Lofty says, thumb running over Dom’s fingers. “Well what d’ya think we’re doing now then?” Dom grins. The mood immediately feels lighter and lifted.  
“Okay well, I would like some clarification then.”  
“Right.” Dom says slowly.  
“Lay down some ground rules for me. What’s okay and what is not okay.” Lofty’s face is just so open and welcoming and _ready for this_ that Dom can’t help himself. He leans forward, one hand around Lofty’s chin and pulls him in. It’s a short, sweet kiss that feels like a promise. Dom pulls away, placing one more wet kiss on Lofty’s cupid’s bow. “I can’t be around you and not kiss you, so that would be fine by me.” Lofty ducks his head with a smile.  
“Other than that, let’s just spend some more time together.” Lofty raises his eyebrows. “Outside of work.” Dom rolls his eyes with a smile. “We’ll see where it goes.” Lofty nods his head at Dom.  
“I’d like that.”


End file.
